Thursday, May 21, 2009

If you've got kids pondering college, the UNC-system database used in a recent Queens University of Charlotte study is a treasure trove.

The state universities track how students do as they advance through the system - or drop out. Cheryl Pulliam of Queens' Public Education Research Institute used the data to look at how kids in five urban districts, including CMS and Wake, compared as they advanced through state schools, and to look at results for individual CMS high schools.

For example: 84 percent of Myers Park grads returned for a second year of college with a GPA of 2.0 or higher, compared with 54 percent of Berry grads.

The database provides school-by-school data from other counties and charter schools, plus provides for interesting comparisons of universities.

For instance: When my son was graduating in 2007, the word at his school was that UNC Chapel Hill was tough to get into but easy to stay in, while N.C. State made it easy to get into but hard to stay.

Turns out they were right: State admitted 62 percent of applicants, with Chapel Hill took only 34 percent. But just over 20 percent of Wolfpack students left before their second year, and only two-thirds graduated within five years. At Chapel Hill, only 3 percent were gone by second year, and 84 percent had graduated in five years.

7 comments:

Technically you have to compare the GPA and SAT scores of the applicants of both schools to determine if UNC is more difficult to get into. Just looking at percentages doesn't make sense unless both schools have the same number of applicants.

In addition you have to look at how many enrolled vs acceptance rates. 19% of UNC applicants enroll vs 29% of NCSU applicants. Not as large of a gap when you look at the total numbers that enroll vs those that are accepted to enroll.

In addition to what Chad said, you can't say for certain that UNC Chapel Hill is easier to stay in than NC State. One could say the UNC accepts students who are smarter and have better grades, which attributes to the higher percentage of them that stay in school and finish in 4 years.

hmm, our teachers starting out get paid at the median level of a high school graduate, and teacher pay tops out around the median pay of a college graduate. And you have to take pay cuts. No wonder our schools do poorly, our best and brightest go into other fields because they pay better.

"In addition to what Chad said, you can't say for certain that UNC Chapel Hill is easier to stay in than NC State. One could say the UNC accepts students who are smarter and have better grades, which attributes to the higher percentage of them that stay in school and finish in 4 years."

Or you could have a brain and understand that an Engineering degree actually requires hard work and brain power compared to some cheesy Liberal Arts degree.

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